


A home in the darkness

by fortunatelypurpletrickster



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Identity Reveal, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Good Parents Sabine Cheng & Tom Dupain, How Do I Tag, Hurt Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Identity Reveal, My First Work in This Fandom, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Protective Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunatelypurpletrickster/pseuds/fortunatelypurpletrickster
Summary: Marinette is worried. Her partner has little care for his well being, Adrien is missing, and her parents are hiding something from her. She's getting close to her breaking point. Until an unexpected surprise throws her for a loop, but this may be the break that she needs.First time posting
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Plagg, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Sabine Cheng, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Tom Dupain, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tom Dupain, Sabine Cheng & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	1. An unexpected visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first time ever publishing my fanfiction, so I'm excited to share this with you :) Please excuse the spelling and grammar errors. If you catch any big ones please let me know so that I can fix them.

Chat Noir had been acting strange lately. That much was obvious. What wasn’t obvious was the why part. As of late, he had been throwing himself in harm’s way more and more often. It was like he was trying to get hurt by something. Which wasn’t fair because they were partners. Chat Noir shouldn’t be trying to take everything onto himself. They had been lucky so far because none of the recent Akumas had been particularly bad. And that her lucky charm could heal most damage. But still, she didn’t want her partner to suffer any more pain than he had to. She was getting worried about his safety. 

‘Another school day’, thought Marinette. Adrien wasn’t at school today on account of some photoshoot. She had thought that to be strange because there had been no scheduled photoshoots. And they would’ve said if he was sick. Nino was having trouble getting a hold of him. Which, while strange, wasn't abnormal. But still, Marinette had some feeling that something wasn’t right. A sense of dread had found its way to her stomach and was threatening to take her over. It had already taken over her stomach, but she didn’t need it to take over her mind. 

“Marinette. Marinette!” A voice pulled her from her musings. Marinette looked up to see that Alya had gotten up and was standing in front of her, trying to grab her attention. 

“Girl, what is up with you? You’ve been acting weird all morning.”

“I’m just thinking.” Alya gave her a little nudge indicating she wanted to know more. “I just think that it’s weird that Adrien isn’t here today. We were told that he had a photoshoot today. But even Nino can't get a hold of him. And he typically has his phone by him during photo shoots.” I paused, hesitant to let Alya know what I was thinking, but I knew that she would understand. “I’m worried that it’s a cover for something else.”

Alya groaned, “I should’ve seen this coming. Look, girl, Adrien is okay. I know that you want to know where he is at all times but you will not always know that.”

“I know Alya, but that doesn’t help the fact that something feels very wrong.”

Alya sat down to look Marinette in the eye and swung an arm over her shoulders. 

“I think that your imagination is just playing a trick on you. Adrien will be back before you know it. Okay?” Marinette nodded. “Good, now come on girl let's get to lunch!” While Alya did her best to distract her from focusing on Adrien for the rest of the day, Marinette, couldn’t help but feel like something had gone wrong. The feeling was back and was threatening to overtake her by the time that she got home. 

Marinette rushed home, she wanted to get to patrol as soon as she could. While she didn’t know who Chat Noir was really. He might have some ideas of what was going on with Adrien. Rushing a quick hello and goodbye to her parents and telling them not to disturb her because she was working on a project this afternoon. She ran up to her room and gave Tikki a cookie, before transforming into Ladybug. 

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Marinette felt a sense of peace, but she couldn’t let herself be like this for long. She pushed herself to get to their meeting place for patrol. Eager to see Chat Noir. Knowing that he got there early, she wasn’t hoping to catch him and ask him for his thoughts before they started patrol.

She got to their meeting place before Chat. After not seeing him in the distance Marinette settled down on the rooftop and overlooked the city. Trying to think about where else Adrien could have been, if not at a photoshoot. Every possible that ran through her head was something that they would have been told. If it had been a trip, a meeting, or some kind of illness. They would have said that instead of a photo shoot.

Irritated that she wasn’t making any progress with that kind of thinking, Marinette decided to think about Chat Noir. He had been acting far more recklessly these past few weeks. She was getting quite worried about him. While he wasn’t doing anything to endanger herself or the people around them. Chat had become more dangerous to himself. Acting like he had nine lives instead of his one. 

Marinette shook herself from her thinking and checked the time. It was nearly four o’clock. Chat would be here in a couple of minutes. He would clear everything up. 

A couple of minutes passed and then a couple more. 10 minutes had passed and Chat had still not shown up. She was getting concerned, he always showed up before their agreed meeting time. And if he couldn’t, he always let her know, since he knew that she was prone to worry about him. 

Marinette got up from her perch to pace the expanse of the rooftop. The unpleasant feeling from earlier had come back. It didn’t just stop at her stomach, it was creeping up her spine and into her head, setting off warning bells. Something was wrong and she was sure of it. 

After waiting out a couple more minutes for Chat to appear with an excuse or an apology. Marinette started patrol by herself. All her worries were piling onto her and caused her to fall from the weight that they had put onto her shoulders. 

Marinette sighed as she picked herself up from the rooftop. Looking up she saw a billboard with Adrien’s face on it. Reminding her of the problems that she was facing. Even though it hadn’t been that long of a patrol. Marinette decided to head in. Her thoughts were making it difficult to contrate on anything anyway. She left a quick message for Chat, letting him know that she was worried about him and that she just did a quick patrol. 

She dropped down onto her rooftop and called off her transformation. Tikki popped out and landed on her hands. Marinette could have collapsed under Tikki’s gentle glaze. 

“Oh, Tikki, what am I going to do! Adrien is gone. Chat didn’t show up for patrol. I’m freaking out!” Marinette cried out. 

“Calm down Marinette, we can’t help them if we can’t think.” 

“I know Tikki, I’m just worried about what happened to both of them to cause them to disappear like this.” 

“We don’t know if they’ve disappeared. Adrien could be back in class tomorrow and you can see Chat by the next patrol.” Tikki floated to her face and rubbed her cheek gently.

Marinette leaned into the touch, before shaking herself away. “Oh Tikki, but what if they aren’t there? What if something bad happened and we waited too long because we thought that they would be alright!” Marinette turned to hide her face. 

“We don’t know that for sure Marinette.”

Marinette wiped away the tears that had started to leak from her eyes. She looked back over at Tikki. She was trying to look reassuring but had failed to mask the worry inside of her eyes. 

“Let’s go inside Marinette and calm down. Then we can think about what to do next.”

Marinette nodded in agreement before opening her trap door and dropping down inside her room.

Inside her room, Marinette wasn’t feeling much better. But Tikki was right. If she wasn’t thinking clearly then she would be no help to anyone. Especially those who needed her help. 

She tried distracting herself from the idea that either Adrien or Chat could be injured and she wasn’t searching for them. She started working on her homework, thinking this may be the one day that she completes it. But had to stop when thoughts of Adrien plagued her mind even more. Then she moved onto sketching but found that it did nothing to help her thoughts. Sewing ended up giving her the same results. 

“Oh Tikki, I can’t stop picturing them lying somewhere hurt and needing my help. What if things are worse because I did nothing!”

Tikki gave her a look, mulling over the words that she had said before reaching a conclusion. “Okay Marinette, how about after dinner we can go out and search for them.”

“Oh thank you, Tikki! Thank you!” Marinette cried as she held Tikki close to her face and spun her around the room. “Thank you! Thank you!”

Tikki signed but she had a fond look in her eyes when Marinette set her done.

“Marinette,” Her mother called up to her. “Can you come done and help us finish up dinner.”

“Be down in a minute Maman,” Marinette called. She turned back to look at Tikki, giving her a hug and an unspoken thank you before she went down the ladder to go help her parents.

Marinette descended her ladder and stepped into the kitchen where her Maman and Papa were talking something over in hushed tones. Not normal, but not unusual for them. 

She walked over to them clearing her throat to signal her approach. “Mamen, Papa, how can I help?”

“Oh, there you are dear, could you help us set the table?”

“Sure Maman.” 

As Marinette started to set the table, she heard her Maman and Papa start talking again in hushed whispers. Even though she knew that it was a private conversation, she couldn’t help but turn her attention toward them as she set the table. 

“What are we going to do Tom, he can’t stay here forever. And how would Marinette react if she found out that we were hiding something.”

“I know dear, but we have to think about what’s best for him. It would also be unfair for us to put that weight on her shoulders.” 

They both trailed off. Marinette acted her best to act like she hadn’t been paying attention to them. 

“Let’s see what he wants, when he wakes up,” Her papa said before bringing over a part of their dinner. Her Maman nodded at his back, before bringing over the rest of it. Marinette quickly looked away before she could catch her gaze.

“Thank you, Marinette for setting the table,” Maman told her with a knowing smile. 

They all sat down to dinner making small talk. Mariette felt tense the whole time. ‘What aren’t my parents telling me? What happened to her partner! And what happened to Adrien?!’ Her stomach was full of butterflies and her head was full of worst-case scenarios. At least after dinner, she could go on another patrol and see if she could find either one. But the thought was doing little to help her appetite. 

“Marinette sweetie, is everything okay?” Her Maman asked.

It took everything in Marinette not to break down into tears about Adrien and Chat Noir missing. About how it was affecting her. Instead, she did her best to look her Maman in the eyes and say that nothing was the matter. 

Tom and Sabine shared a look, a conversation seemed to pass through their eyes in a matter of seconds.

“There’s something that we need to talk to you about.” Her papa said in a low voice. “We probably should have said something as soon as we knew about it. We’re sorry we didn’t.” 

“What’s that?” Marinette said wetly.

“We know you’re Ladybug dear.” 

Marinette’s heart stopped beating. Her mouth dropped open in surprise. She shook her head quickly to clear her head before denying that that rumor had any truth to it. “Whaaat? I’m not Ladybug. What do you mean? I’m Ladybug!” Marinette cried out, trying to get her parents to believe her.

Sabine smiled at her daughter’s antics, before reaching out and laying her hand on Marinette’s. “It’s okay dear, we’ve known for a while and we’re not mad. We’re proud of you. At times though we are scared, but that doesn’t change that we are so proud of you”

“How did you find out?” Marinette said, not quite meeting her parents’ eyes. Preferring to look at where her Maman’s hand and hers were still connected. 

“You always seemed to disappear during the attacks, and it’s just you with the mask. It wasn’t hard for us to see through it” Her Maman’s quiet but proud voice caused Marinette to look up and met her Maman’s eyes. 

“It’s hard to believe that no one else has figured it out yet.” Her Papa said. Shocking Marinette from the peace that her Maman had drawn her to. 

Sabine’s gentle smile though turned into a small frown. “We haven’t exactly been truthful either. I’m sorry dear.”

“What do you mean Maman?”

“It might be easier to show you than to tell you. As it involves a couple of aspects of your life.” Her Maman looked regretful to what she had to show her. 

They all got up from the table, dinner had been long forgotten. Marinette followed her Maman to the guest room with her Papa trailing behind them. 

When the three of them got to the door of the guest house, her Papa and Maman paused for a minute to give her one last look, before opening the door. 

Marinette stood in the doorway going into shock. There was Adrien sound asleep, on his cheek was a black kwami with cat ears. Her brain short circulated at the idea that her partner was at her parents’ house and was the classmate that she was in love with. 

“We weren’t sure how to break the news to you, but he came to the bakery just as we were about the close, covered in bruises. Then he passed out and transformed. So we brought him upstairs and patched him up.”

“How long has he been here?” Was the only thing that Marinette was able to say. Even then it can out in a small whisper. Tears were threatening to erupt like a waterfall. 

“He came today right as we were about to close. So not very long.” Her Papa said as he put a hand on her shoulder. Her Maman had migrated over to Adrien to check and see if he was doing any better.

After making sure that he was doing all right her Maman indicated that she wanted them to move out of the room. 

“He’s all right, just exhausted. We’ll see if he can wake up soon. How are you doing sweetie?” 

“I’m not sure Maman, I’m shocked that Adrien is Chat Noir. I’m worried about what he had to run away, but I’m glad that he felt safe enough to come to us. I’m just lost about what’s happening.”

Her Maman and Papa shared a look. “We are too. So we were hoping if you could shed some light as to what is going on.”

“I’m not sure, Chat’s mentioned that his father is distant and never around. Seeing that Chat is Adrien it makes sense. But other than that he hasn’t mentioned anything. Though his behavior has become strange lately.”

“What do you mean?” 

“He’s become very distant, never sticking around after fights, not coming to patrol, and he’s been putting himself in harm’s way, more often than he normally does. I was going to ask him what was going on, the next time that I saw him. But he hasn’t let me ask.” 

Her Maman looked worried, she and her Papa exchanged another look. Then her Papa left to go to the kitchen. Her Maman sat them down on the couch.

“I’m worried sweetie, that something may have escalated in his home life.”

“I wish that I knew Mamen, but we have been trying to keep our personal lives separate from each other. I wish that I knew more about this.”

“I figured as much dear, but I just wanted to check with you.”

Marinette was about to say something when her Papa came back into the living room with a mug of hot chocolate for her. 

“I know that this is a lot to take in Marinette, but we want you to know that whatever happens, you have our support.” Her Papa said as he handed her the mug.

“Thank you, but if it’s alright with you, I think that I would rather stay Adrien and make sure that he’s alright.”

Her parents shared a look, “Alright dear, if that’s what you think is best, let us know if anything happens or changes.” 

Marinette got up and left the living room to sit beside Chat noi- no Adrien’s side. It was weird to think of them as the same person. But as she watched him sleep it became more and more obvious. She never saw Adrien when she was protecting her class from an akuma. They had similar senses of humor and he seemed to know a lot about her classmates. She was beating herself up for not seeing it sooner. 

“Oh chaton, why didn’t you come to me sooner. I would have helped you without hesitation.” She said as she stroked his hair out of his face. 

“He didn’t want to be a burden on you” A sudden voice called out to her. Marinette jumped in fear and stopped stroking Adrien’s hair, but relaxed when she saw that it was his kwami. She composed herself quickly

“He would never be a burden to me.”

“I know that. But whenever I tried to tell him, he wouldn’t believe me.”

“What happened Plagg?”

“I think it’s best if you hear it from the kit’s mouth. But it’s bad.”

Marinette suppressed a shudder, before resuming petting his hair. Her other hand reached out to hold his until he could wake up. Then they could figure out this mess but until then, Marinette was okay just being his guardian


	2. The talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this update is coming so late. My professors seemed to all decide that they wanted to give their tests within the same two-week timeline. But I should be good for the next couple of weeks and I'm hoping to update more regularly.
> 
> Warnings: Implied child abuse

‘This is nice’ was Marinette’s first thought when she woke up. Her neck was sore, but it felt like Tikki was stroking her hair. Which while nice, she only did it if Marinette was having a nightmare. 

As she became more coherent, she realized that she was lying forward from a chair and that she was holding someone’s hand. It was mostly that she was holding someone’s hand that was freaking her out. On impulse, she jerked away and tried to stand up. But her legs were too asleep to hold her up and she ended up falling on the floor. The hand that she was holding squeezed hers tight, but the hand in her hair separated. Her face flushed bright pink out of embarrassment, but she boldly looked up at the person on the bed. Which of course to her luck, was Adrien.  
Wait, Adrien- 

“Wait, Adrien? What are you doing here! Are you okay? Are you injured?” 

“For the most part I’m fine, your parents helped heal up the other parts though.” He said while squeezing her hand.

Marinette looked down at their joined fingers and remembered everything that happened the previous night. Chat hadn’t shown up to patrol, her parents knew she was ladybug, that Chat Noir had come to them for help before detransforming as Adrien. 

“You’re Chat Noir.” Marinette finally said in a daze. 

Adrien ducked his face, looking sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m Chat Noir. I know that you wanted to keep our identities a secret, and I swear that I didn’t know you were Ladybug. Or else I would have gone somewhere else for help! I’ll leave in a few minutes I just wanted to-” Adrien had started to ramble. Marinette took the first step and leaned over him to hug him tightly.

“I don’t care” She whispered. “I don’t care that you know. All I care about is that you are safe. I’m so glad that you felt safe enough to come to me for help.” She pulled away to look him in the eye. Her hands pressed firmly on his shoulders. “But if you think about leaving before you are healed, I will hunt you down to the end of the universe to make sure that you are okay.” Marinette leaned back in the hug, holding on tighter than she was before. Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes. But she was going to strong until she was alone.

Adrien clutched at her back, trying to burrow deeper into the embrace, before letting out a sob. Marinette shushed him and began to rock him back and forth.  
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Let it all out.” Marinette whispered soft reassurances to him.

She looked up and saw the two kwamis talking while each but sneaking glances at their charges every few seconds.

After a few minutes Adrien’s sobs died out, but Marinette wasn’t ready to let go of him yet. And with the way that he was holding on to her. Marinette had a feeling that Adrien wasn’t ready yet either. 

Marinette saw her parents in the doorway looking at the two of them with heartbroken expressions. She nudged Adrien to get him to look up. He let go with hesitation, sought out her hand to hold as her parents came over to the bed. 

Her Maman pressed a hand to Adrien’s face, he leaned into it on instinct. 

“Hello dears, I wanted to wait for you two to wake up before we checked you over again.” She looked over at Adrien, “How are you feeling Adrien?” 

“I’m alright, just tired and sore.”

“I’m sure you are, but how are you mentally?”

“I don’t know” Adrien sighed. “On the one hand I’m grateful to be here, but I’m also scared and worried. I don’t want to put you guys in any danger.”

“Why would be in danger here.”

“My father…” Adrien trailed off and shrugged trying to illustrate his point. Marinette squeezed his hand for comfort. He flashed a sad smile before continuing on. “I’m worried that he’ll find out I’m here and hurt you guys. I would have gone elsewhere, but you were closest.”

“I’m glad that we were Adrien, this will always be a safe place for you. And let me worry about your father we can handle him. You shouldn’t have to.”

“Thank you, Mrs.Cheng, that means so much to me.”

“You can call be Sabine. I think that’s all I need right now, but later we will have to talk about some things though okay?”

“Okay”

“Good, I’ll see you later dear. Marinette a word?”

“Of course Maman.” Marinette reluctantly let go of Adrien’s hand and followed her Maman out of the room. In the corner of her eye, she could see her Papa sitting down next to Adrien on the bed, before the door closed. 

Marinette followed her Maman to the kitchen, Marinette took a sit on the breakfast nook and watched as her Maman quickly made two cups of hot chocolate. She set one down in front of Marinette and the other in front of the other chair, before taking a sit herself. 

“Now, I know that all of this must be a shock to you dear, it was for me at first. Just take your time to process everything and then we’ll talk about what’s going to happen with Adrien.”

“It’s alright Maman, I’m ready to talk now. I don’t think that I would be able to think about anything until I know that Adrien is safe.”

“If that’s the case, then okay. Let me know if I need to go back and explain something. For the moment your Papa and I don’t plan on taking Adrien home. In fact, we are thinking about having him stay with us for the time being.”

Marinette nodded in agreement.

“Especially with what he was talking about in there, I don’t think that it’s safe for him to be there.”

“I agree with you Maman, based on what Chat has told me about his father, it sounds like Adrien is left alone all the time and has a very restricted schedule.”

Sabine nodded, “I thought as much. For right now, I’m going to have to ask that we keep Chat Noir on the bench for now, just until he heals. Then he can go back out with you.”

Marinette felt relieved that she had said that. She had been wanting to make that judgment call but wasn’t sure how Adrien would receive it. He didn’t seem so accepting of help.  
“I think that is for the best Maman.” 

Sabine patter her on the head and smiled.

“I’m glad that you agree, I want to make it clear to you that he is your partner, if you think he could handle going back out there, then let him. It is always going to be your call. I’m just so proud of the person that you are becoming. You are amazing”

Marinette felt herself tear up, “Thanks Maman” she chocked out. Sabine stroked her cheek.

“I’m just glad that I get to see it. Now, I think we’ve left the boys alone for enough time. Let’s go check in on them. 

Marinette nodded and got up, her hot chocolate long since forgotten. And started the walk back to the bedroom, not sure what the future would hold for them. But right now she was glad to have her parents and Adrien by her side.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated!  
> I'm planning on continuing this I'm just trying to find the direction that I want to go in! Thanks for making it to the end :D


End file.
